How to stop missing someone

It tears at you, day and night. You hate being single. It’s that horrible feeling in your gut. It just won’t go away. You sometimes touch your stomach to make sure everything is still there. Physically, the pieces are in place, but that feeling makes it seem not to be true. It feels like…a hole. Your body is complete but yet this hole is there and it only seems to grow bigger and bigger. You’re missing someone and can almost feel their soul pulling you through space and time. Part of you wants to give in, it’ll be easier that way, yet giving in isn’t an option. They’re gone, and gone they will stay.

Most of the pain we feel surrounding a breakup is centered around a singular belief: there is only one. No one will be as wonderful, as beautiful, as charming, as interesting. You can’t imagine anyone making you feel as good or as loved. There’s just no way. There’s only one person that could ever do this. I mean, right?

The truth is, we all feel that way after a breakup and sometimes even after a rejection from someone we admire. Somewhere in your psyche you have made up your mind that this person is the end-all, be-all of dating. You could be happy with him or her, but not without. This feeling can go on for months, even years after the triggering event…sometimes with good days and sometimes with bad. Maybe you should reach out and make contact, see if things can be reignited? But no, the fear of that other person having moved on and being happy without you is too great. If you’re lonely, you hope they are too, all the exes and those who’ve turned you down.

When I broke up with my first girlfriend, I was a freshman in college. One of the upperclassmen in the drama club noticed me sulking around and asked what was going on. I relayed the story of how my girlfriend had left me for another guy. He listened for a while and then said something that I wish I would remember more often: “As Yoda said, there is another.”

He was right. I went on to date some more and love again. At the time it seemed like that would never happen, but time heals wounds and I moved on. The real approach to stop missing someone is to realize that the world is full of potential partners for you. There’s close to 7 billion people on earth, and because of transportation and communication advances in the past two decades, they are all up for grabs.

After a breakup, you believe there is only that one out of billions that could make you happy. There were certainly qualities about this person that made them special to you. It’s important to realize that that one person doesn’t have a monopoly on those qualities. There are a lot of kind people. There are a lot of beautiful people. There are a lot of intelligent people. There are a lot of people who are driven in their careers, love their family, and just might be looking for someone special.

I recently wrote an email to some friends asking their opinion of how to get a certain girl out of one’s mind. The best reply was simply, “think of some OTHER girl.” And he was right. The old adage about there being plenty of fish in the sea is completely true. What you need to do is find a way to believe it. Meeting a girl that intrigues you while you’re wrapped up in someone else helps. Now you know there’s two. If there’s two, then there must be three. This is why several dating experts recommend just going out and meeting new people even if you feel like you don’t want a serious relationship due to past heartbreak. Just discovering that there are other interesting people out there is an important first step in getting over someone.

Think of it this way. If you go into a bakery and there is only one pastry for sale, you start to get nervous that you won’t get it. There are other hungry people there too and who knows when one will pounce. If you go to a bakery with a large assortment of pastries, you never worry that you won’t get what you want (or deserve). You know that there’s a lot of options, and even if they run out of your favorite, there are several others that you’d be willing to try. No angst, no nervousness.

So if you’re missing someone right now, stop and imagine being in a group with five other people. Each of these people has a quality you admire and has it in spades compared to the one you’re missing. He’s more handsome. She’s smarter. He speaks lovingly. She makes you laugh. And bonus, they’re all interested in you. Remind yourself of this scene whenever you start feeling yourself dwelling on your past relationship and partner. There are other people out there, you just need to believe that they exist. And when you truly believe it, that’s when they start to appear.

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Thank you. I am in a state where I google “how to stop missing someone” and I ended up here. I usually just read advices and go mope and eat back again, but you mentioned bakery and it made sense. I never get anxious if the bakery is full of fresh products or when I go to the store and I don’t find my favorite chocolate I don’t get depressed (for long), I just try something else. I never compared people to food, but THANK YOU. This will help me in future, since I just ended up being single from my first relationship,which was also long distance and alltogether lasted 2 years. I feel/felt there will never be another like him. But I just think I went to the bakery when it was closing time. Thanks for sharing positive vibe,for it made me a little less depressed.

Thanks for your post. I feel exactly the way you described “the feeling that you won’t find anyone better”. 6 months ago i met a girl downtown and she was only in town for the weekend and then headed back home to vegas. It turns out she just left her ex in Arizona and made a stop in San Diego so i thought to myself a one night stand. Afterwards she extended her stay to thursday up from Sunday and on that Thursday we decided to celebrate our last night together but then i got a DUI and was arrested. From that point on she was there for me, giving me rides to school and even getting me a rental car while she was visiting her ffamily in Vegas. A girl who was there for me like she was is something i’ve never seen but i knew she was at a fresh break up so she was still talking to her ex. After sometime she was planning on leaving him and 5 months out she mentioned to me that she’s pregnant. She told me she isn’t sure who the father is because she had slept with her ex on one of her supposed nights out to Vegas. Today i find out the baby is not mine and that they’re going to try and rekindle things. My worry is not about looks or anything like that but finding a girl who is as giving as her and in this society it seems like women want the guy to hand them everything

Thanks,1 month on and i love her more then i can tell or show the world i know i’m not perfect and i could have done better but i love her and loved being with her. Waking up to her smiling in her sleep as she snuggled into me before work. all those memories will be lost like tears in the rain. i never wanted her to walk away, but she says she’s happier then she’s ever been. What do i say to that? except i love her and i’m glad she’s smiling. i see pictures of us together. She loved me too i just dont know where it went and so fast. i feel so lost.

The problem with telling people that there will always be someone else out there is that it sometimes just isn’t true. No one wants to say it but this country is full of lonely old people. Once you get into your 40s and you have family baggage etc it is much harder to meet people. If you have a higher than average IQ or education it is also harder – because frankly a lot of men don’t want a woman who is smarter than them or academic. The more unusual you are they harder it is to find a partner – and all these dating sites seem to suggest rather glibly that gee, there are countless potential partners around each corner. For many people this simply isn’t true. There are also many single people living in small or rural communities who are severely limited in choice and before you say, move, that isn’t always possible for other reasons such as dependants. So, while I appreciate the sentiment of the blog, I wish people would stop being glib and start being a little more realistic. Many people in fact haven’t believed their partner was a soul mate. – it’s often a compromise but when you are lonely even that’s harder to replace than you might think.

Thank you for your article.
I had previously hypothesized the same, regarding “fish in the sea” and “getting back out there”
However, no matter what good qualities I find and what attractive and interesting intelligent females I find, I just can’t get my ex-girlfriend out of my mind.
I have already met a few new girls, found them attractive, or talented or interesting..
Unfortunately, no two snowflakes are alike. When you find somebody and fall in love with that person, it is impossible to replicate that.
And depending on the circumstances of the breakup, it is impossible to get over.
Thank you for your paradigm shifting article, I can tell it has greatly benefitted other readers by their comments.
But dating others with the expectation that I will find the same qualities will only hinder my progress.